Published by Douglas Messerli, the World Cinema Review features full-length reviews on film from the beginning of the industry to the present day, but the primary focus is on films of intelligence and cinematic quality, with an eye to exposing its readers to the best works in international film history.

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Yorgos
Lanthimos’ new dystopian satire, The
Lobster, takes place in a seemingly present but slightly futuristic world
where being married is a requirement of life. Those who have been divorced,
and even those whose wife or husband has died, are taken to a large hotel and
given 45 days to find a new life-time companion. If by the end of that time
they have not found someone compatible, they are transformed to any animal of their
choice.

Most choose dogs, reports a hotel staff
member, “that’s why there are so many dogs about.” But the “hero” of this tale,
David (a physically unrecognizable Colin Farrell), wants to be transformed into a
lobster if he cannot find a mate. Even though his brother has become a dog who
travels with him, he has chosen to live his own life as a lobster because of their
long life-spans and the fact they are “blue-blooded,” a sign of their nobility.

Of course, as another hotel guest reminds
him, he might be caught and boiled with his meat scooped out and eaten. Even
the domesticated animals are not quite safe: the very first scene portrays a woman angrily
speeding to a field where several donkeys have gathered; she gets out of the
car with a shotgun and shoots and kills one of the donkeys, presumably her
ex-husband against whom she still holds a grudge. We never know whether she got
the right donkey.

Not only do the “loners” have to find
someone to marry in 45 days, but apparently they are awarded the right to marry
more easily if they can find someone with whom they share a major
characteristic or habit. In order to save himself, one of David’s friends, the
Limping Man (Ben Whitshaw), focuses on a woman who has regular nosebleeds
(Jessica Barden), banging his face against a table
or wall in order to produce his own nosebleeds. He has a limp and was formerly
married to a woman who also had a limp. The ruse works, temporarily, and the
couple is awarded a special section in the hotel and then sent out to a yacht
for several months to be observed and evaluated as to whether they are truly
compatible. If they have difficulties, so a hotel leader reports, they will be
assigned a child, “which usually solves any other problems.”

Although David also befriends a
biscuit-eating woman (Olivia Colman)—who since she cannot find another biscuit
eater, later attempts suicide—and a Lisping Man (John C. Reilly), who,
similarly, has no luck in finding a companion.

David decides on trying to convince the
Heartless Woman (Angeliki Papoulia) that he is compatible, ignoring the cries
of the biscuit eater and even the Heartless Woman’s own mocked death-throes
through choking. But when she kicks his brother/dog to death, he breaks into
tears, and she becomes determined to report him for his lie, which will mean he
will have no choice of the animal he is to become.

If all of this sounds somewhat fantastic
and silly, even illogical, one only has to think of our society today which,
with its new acceptance of gay marriage (citizens of this dystopian can declare
that they are gay, and attempt to find a gay mate, but bi-sexuality is
outlawed, presumably because it would mean moving from gender to gender), has
increasingly advanced a preference for the marital state—which several single
members of the LGBT community, while recognizing the social and political
advances, have questioned; and one need only listen to the daily television
ads for the numerous dating services—where people are chosen precisely for
their “compatibility”—to comprehend the source of the director’s satire.

I know nothing about Lanthimos’ own sexuality,
but one might guess that he is gay; oddly enough, despite no homosexual
narrative in this film, the movie won a Queer Palm Award at Cannes. I do know that he
is unmarried, and, based upon his earlier film Dogtooth, that he is not exactly enchanted with family life.

However, as David ultimately discovers,
being a Loner equally has its Kafka-like restrictions. In the woods where the
Loners hide out in their attempt not to be shot by the hotel inmates with
tranquilizing dart guns (the inmates are given further days for bagging each
Loner), flirting, kissing, and sexual intercourse have serious consequences,
the latter two involving a deep cutting of lips and other organs.

Here, among numerous of the beasts once
existing as humans (peacocks, pigs, rabbits, and other species) the Loner gang
members, headed by their Leader (Léa Seydoux), must dig their own graves, where
if they are hit they can quickly be buried. Although David has been unable to
find a suitable woman in the hotel, he immediately bonds here with a beautiful
Short Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz), since he must also wear glasses. Yet, now
their love is quite meaningless and, more importantly, dangerous to their
lives. In order to communicate their love among the others, they develop—much
as do family members in Dogtooth—an
intricate private language wherein, for example, a look to the left expresses
their love, while a look to their right means “danger.”

Every so often some of the Loners don
suits and return to the city, pretending to be couples so that they might
purchase needed supplies; such voyages give David and his new love an
opportunity to express to their love more openly, particularly when meeting with
the Leader’s parents who might report her “loner” status. But during one of
these outbursts of expression, the Leader realizes the truth of the situation,
soon after pretending to take the Short Sighted Woman to an eye surgeon to
correct her eye problems, which, of course, might make her less compatible with
David. Worse, however, the doctor has been told to blind her, and the woman
returns to David without, now, any possibility of escape to the other
world.

Despite the harsh conditions Lanthimos
has outlined, however, the film finally changes gears as it moves into the
territory of a romantic love story, as David conveys to his blind lover that he
is willing, as a kind of doomed Oedipus Rex, to blind himself in order to join
her.

Together the two escape back to the city,
David retiring into a bathroom to accomplish the act of blinding himself. It is a difficult task
surely, as he stuffs paper towels into his mouth to block any screams he may emit
during the act. We never see him actually blind himself, but we can presume it
is successful when the screen suddenly goes black

The audience with whom I saw the film,
however, seemed not to realize what had happened until the credits began
rolling, when several audience members let out laughs and yelps, even a few
boos. I could only own wonder what else they might have imagined for this
remarkable satire of current social mores? Blindness is always the solution for those who see too much.